Triad
by Concolor44
Summary: The "spy game" isn't for sissies, but NONE of these very accomplished young women could be described that way. All three are after the same thing, but who will come out on top is anyone's guess. Raven/Jinx/Violet
1. Chapter 1

**Triad**

_[Author's Notes: This little bit of nonsense has been hopping around from one side of my brain to the other for weeks, and I finally decided to pay it some attention. Rated T for what I anticipate will be some violence, naughty language and sexual innuendo.]_

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_**Chapter One**_

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**The Dark**

My problem – eh, make that _problems_ – were of two types: on the one hand, I had no clue where this "dangerous object" was being kept in the complex, nor did I have a good idea how big it might be; on the other, I knew for a fact that I had competition.

I could feel her. Which meant that she could feel me. Which, in a word, sucked.

At best my current location in a supply closet was a temporary solution. I'd gotten in undetected, teleportation being a very handy tool, but soon discovered that the schematics we had were _seriously_ outdated, which left me _seriously_ lost. I was going to have to check the complex physically.

At least I still had communications. Concentrating briefly, I activated the alpha-wave set embedded in the soft bone behind my right ear. { { Zulu } }

_[ [ I copy, Thirteen ] ]_

{ { This wing seems to be nothing but some kind of cubicle farm } }

_[ [ Crap ] ]_

{ { I'm going to head south and see what they're doing in that area } }

_[ [ Okay, but keep your head down ] ]_

{ { Duh! } }

_[ [ Can you still detect her? ] ]_

{ { You let me worry about that! Thirteen out } }

Cautiously I opened my mind, allowing my empathic field to expand into the rooms around me. To the north was the empty room I had recently quitted, to the east the outer wall of this part of the base. There was a patrol marching past. Fortunately they didn't have a dog with them. Dogs, as I learned some time ago, can feel me watching. They don't like it.

To the west was a corridor, empty to my mind's eye; to the south, an open expanse of withered grass between this wing and the next. I wrapped myself in a shroud of inky darkness and phased through the wall.

The trip across the open space was quickly and quietly accomplished, and soon I was inside. This, I reflected when I got a look around, had promise. The only light in the room came from the EXIT sign above the door, but with my darksight that was plenty. The walls were smooth and white where they weren't clad in stainless steel; various tall benches lined the walls, two with updraft hoods; a large cabinet to my left was packed with reagents; there was something that resembled a distillery in the corner; and across the big room stood what I was sure was a mass spectrometer. This place screamed "Chemistry Lab" in several languages. My confidence feeling somewhat revived, I glided across to the door and let my mind wander.

Paydirt.

Okay, _qualified_ paydirt. I could tell from the excited minds a few rooms away that something big was going on, and if they were working on it at this time of night, it could hardly be anything else. But between them and me were many other minds, all focused on maintaining security here at all costs. Not good.

A few seconds of furious thought sped by. There were several options, but none was without flaw. Finally shrugging to myself, I floated up and phased through the ceiling. Traveling along in the tiny space between the acoustic tiles and the steel beams that supported the roof, I made my way slowly past the massed guards and eventually gained a position over the room where all the excitement drew me.

I could hear voices, low but strained with tension. Lifting a tile just enough to peek past it, I gazed down into what was doubtless the most advanced lab I'd ever seen … and I've been through Starr Labs more than once. These guys were high rollers, and no mistake. And the object of their collective affection was positioned in what appeared to be a stasis field. At least, it was floating above a glowing table.

The thing was white, close to half a meter long and about a third that in diameter, and tapered toward one end. It seemed to be hollow. And fifteen scientists were all over it like ugly on a warthog. Most of them were staring in rapt attention at numbers running by on monitors, but two of them were manipulating the device, turning it in various directions so it could be analyzed … probably. I'm more into magic than science. They could have been planning to spray-paint it for all I knew.

Her presence was stronger here. She was close. Very close. I didn't have much time.

But none of that would matter in a few more seconds. Once I wrested the device from its containment field, I could teleport away and they would never know what happened. But I'd need a diversion …

##

**The Bright**

She was here somewhere. I could smell her. See, the pisser is, and always has been, that she has a better idea of which way and how far than I do. I know she's around, but that's all I know. Damn it.

I felt for the guard's pulse again, just to be sure he wasn't gonna check out on me. The darts they supplied me with aren't supposed to be fatal, but some people are allergic and some have heart conditions, and you just can't be too careful, you know? I haven't killed anyone on this mission – for that matter I haven't ever really _killed_ _**anybody**_, straight up – and I'd like to keep my record pristine. What I've noticed is that a trail of bodies tends to haunt you for a _really_ long time. Anyhow, he was fine. He'd be out for a good twelve hours, and worthless for the next day, but as The Chief has observed more than once, he'd get over it. I pushed him a little farther back into the air vent and replaced the cover.

Our intel was a bit sketchy on the layout of this place. I thought this Big Bad Bomb thingy would be housed in this wing, but that turned out to be a wild goose chase. I combed the whole building, and if there's any research going on here, it sure ain't centered on alien tech. That meant moving to one of the other facilities in the complex … and _that_ meant moving across open ground. Kind of a lot of open ground. I didn't like it much, but it couldn't be helped. And I _was_ prepared for it. Sort of.

Moving as quickly as I could toward one of the exits, I checked my life-sign monitor: nobody within thirty meters. I had the sentries' schedule down by then, so avoiding them was a snap. The door to the outside had a keypad – of _course_ – so I had to assume that if I put in the code, somebody somewhere would know about it. However, a simple malfunction …

Lightly touching one fingertip to the front of the keypad, I let a few pink sparks trickle into it, and was shortly rewarded with a brief _zzzzst_ sound and the merest whisper of smoke. The door clicked and swung inward several degrees, and I slipped outside, not bothering to hide a smirk. I _really_ love doing that.

I had to stand there for a few seconds to let my suit acclimate to the environment, and I hoped nobody was looking at me just then. But no alarms went off, so I guess it worked. I started moving slowly and smoothly across the dry grass, taking small, very regular steps. As long as I didn't move too quickly for the suit's receptors to follow, I would look just like another patch of grass. The theory behind the suit escapes me – higher math ain't my thing – but I couldn't argue with the results. It took close to three minutes, but I made it into the shadow of the next building without incident. A few seconds work at the access door, and I was in.

Yeah! Now this was more like it! Where the other wing was full of dorms and exercise equipment and training grounds and a huge kitchen, this place looked downright sterile. A quick survey with the monitor told me where the people were concentrated here … and there were a lot of 'em. That probably meant a lot of guards, which made my little ol' heart just swell with anticipation.

The downside was that my "spider sense" about my rival was going into overdrive. I'd bet money she was in the building, too, which meant I was running out of time, and stealth was going to have to take a back seat to efficiency.

I flicked the hidden switch that activated my hex-energy capacitor and started charging it up, pulled out my beautiful little dart gun, and slunk along the corridor …

##

**The Secret**

Once again I gave silent thanks that my powers still operated in this wacky place. My thanks had to _remain_ silent because speaking would sort of make my being invisible a moot point, since there were two guards less than a meter in front of me. I controlled my breathing, lightly and quietly drawing air in and out of my open mouth, and waited for them to get on with their patrol.

Sheathed in stainless steel, the wall at my back would have been cold, but I couldn't feel it through the nearly indestructible weave of my super-suit. Edna had outdone herself with this one, as it also allowed me to become invisible throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum. No longer would those pesky heat-seeking security systems be a problem.

I knew the remote was here, in this building. The tracking device led me straight here. But the NSA had insisted that this needed to be a silent extraction – that interacting with anyone here would be a bad idea and could have terribly far-reaching consequences. They were convinced that Zero-Point Energy devices didn't exist, _couldn't_ exist in this … I guess you'd call it a parallel dimension. Whatever. That's for the science guys to unwind. They said the conditions were wrong, or different, or 'not conducive' to ZPE's development, and that if someone figured out how to actually _use_ the remote, it would be, and I quote, "Bad".

That wasn't for me to worry about, though. I had to worry about the several dozen guards between me and the device. They picked me for this mission because I can be the sneakiest little bitch on the planet when I want to be. For the last several years I've considered invisibility to be quite the lesser of my abilities, but this mission calls for finesse as opposed to raw power. So finesse it is.

The two in front of me were pretty standard as guards go: dumb as a box of rocks. They had spent the last ten minutes, while burning three cigarettes apiece, talking about whether this one baseball player should try out as a walk-on for a pro football team. You wouldn't think that would occupy so much time, but these two had mastered the art of compressing the least ideas into the most words. I could scream.

My patience finally gave out; I had a timetable to keep to, and it didn't allow for a whole lot of sightseeing. I scooted over to the side so that I could see past them and spotted a cabinet against the far wall. It held … damn. It held weapons. Lots of them. These guys had an arsenal. Oh, well. Beggars and choosers, you know? It was the work of but a moment to insert a small force field behind the cabinet and give it a push. It toppled forward in lovely slow-motion, and one of the guards only noticed it right before it hit the floor. Sheet steel smashing into concrete can be very loud, and this was. The more observant guard only jumped. The other one yelled, and spun, and fired his rifle into the cabinet.

"Moe, you idiot!" yelled the first guard, grabbing Moe's weapon. "Ya tryin' ta blow us up?"

"Sorry, Chuck." And he did look sorry. "It just, uh, give me a – that is, uh, that was a hell of a crash."

They both trotted over to the fallen cabinet, and I scooted out into the corridor.

The rest of the trip was made of mad dashes interspersed with serious tip-toeing. When I could, I would stop and take my bearings with the locator, and I knew I was getting really close. It seemed to be just on the other side of the wall to my right. All that remained was to get it within sight, use a field to crush it out of existence, and activate my Recovery Signal. I'd get out of this with hours to spare!

And that was when a nice, big section of the wall blew outward and slammed me into the other side of the corridor …

##

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_[Author's End Notes: I want to apologize to my readers for my lack of recent activity. You see, last week's tornados pretty much wiped my home town (Ringgold, GA) off the map. Many people were killed, two of whom I knew, but none of my family members was hurt, thanks be to God. I don't know if the town will recover, though. Dozens of homes were destroyed and over a dozen businesses demolished and at last count seventeen people had died in the county, five in one family when the Class F4 tornado scoured their land clean. Their house wasn't just smashed; it was gone. Nothing but a slab left. I've been preoccupied with that, and with adjusting to having my youngest daughter back in the house after her being in psychiatric placement for the last fourteen months. That's been a MAJOR thing to deal with, but we are adapting. Sort of._

_Anyway, I should have another installment of Benny's Breakfast House done in the next week or so, so be on the lookout. Happy reading!]_


	2. Chapter 2

**Triad**

_[Author's Notes: Okay, let's get going on this one again. It's a little odd/tricky/unusual for me to try to juggle four stories at a time, so I beg your pardon if my updates seem sporadic._

_Disclaimer: I have never owned the Titans. I do not now own the Titans. I will not (most likely) ever own the Titans. That would be DC Comics and their parent company. They make the money. I do not.]_

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_**Chapter Two**_

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**The Dark**

Time is hardly ever my friend.

I can remember, after the Titans helped me kick my father's sorry ass, thinking that I was no longer living in Countdown World. Prior to that event, my entire life was little more than a glorified waiting room. I was waiting for the world – my world – to end in pain and flame and death. But that didn't happen (… well, mostly, but I think you get the idea). On the contrary, I survived when I wasn't supposed to. It opened up a whole new realm of temporal possibility: planning for the future, second chances (and third and fourth and …), not to mention a lack of basic dread in my existence.

You could say that time didn't have an end point for me any more. I could look forward to living out a normal life … assuming that I age the way humans do. I don't know yet that I do. One perk of Trigon's heritage may be an extended lifespan. He was thousands of years old, and he only seemed to get more powerful with age. If I do that, too … well, I don't like to think about that to often or too deeply. It wouldn't be much fun seeing everyone I love gradually age and wither and die while I never changed. And I would probably get pretty tired of living after a few hundred years.

But come on! I'm only twenty-five. And while it is true that I don't look even a scrap different from the way I did at eighteen, that can also be said for a great many baseline humans. And the steady increase in my "special" abilities can easily be attributed to the amount of time I spend in practice, study, and meditation, as opposed to an incremental strengthening of my demonic side. If anything, I have _more_ control over that aspect of my personality, not _less_.

But even though these thoughts race through my mind in a few seconds, it's just woolgathering, and I don't have time for that. As I mentioned, time is rarely my friend, and _never_ on missions.

I took another look at the "Nasty Dangerous Thing" the scientists were studying and then glanced around at the rest of the room. Electronics. Measuring and detection equipment. What looked to me like a gas chromatograph. Ah-ha! That other thing, over against the far wall, I'd bet my paycheck, was a cryogenic tempering unit. That meant that the tanks on the other side of them … yeah, they look like they're the right color to be holding liquid nitrogen. Perfect.

I wanted to accomplish this without loss of life if possible. Call it left over morality if you want to, but even though these guys, according to our intelligence, were backed by the mob, I was squeamish about killing any of them. Turk doesn't feel that way. When he deals with organized crime, things get messy. But I think that's why they tapped me for this mission instead of him. 'Messy' wouldn't help our cause, and would only get the mob boss in question mad at us. Not that in the past he'd ever made a point of sending us a fruit basket at Christmas. Unless it had a bomb in it.

I studied the various lines and pipes snaking around on the other side of the room and satisfied myself on which one to pop loose. No one in the room noticed when a thin tendril of blackness wrapped around a brass fitting and gave it a twist. But almost immediately thereafter, everyone in the room, including yours truly, became aware that something had gone seriously wrong. The main problem, at least from my perspective, was that my pink-haired nemesis popped in the door opposite. I'd known she was close, but damn! I brought a couple of short loops of soul-self around to grab the device, but she was faster …

##

**The Bright**

The Chief frequently took the time to make it plain that I didn't get "extra bonus points" for taking out the opposition in a painless-yet-non-lethal manner. He didn't care one way or another whether I got in and got out with nobody being the wiser, or just left a smoking hole and a high body count where the Bad Guys' base used to be. He knew I had the chops to do it either way, and he trusted my judgment. He remembers what it was like, even though quite a few years have grown old and died between now and the last time he did any field work. And things haven't gotten any better out here since they stuck a peg-leg on him and kicked him upstairs. But I knew he had my back, whatever I decided.

I had to get that device, and I had to do it quick. She was close, and I mean _really_ close. Like, within twenty or thirty meters close, and that meant I was out of time. Once she had the thing in her possession, I could flat _forget_ getting it back. I don't teleport, or follow people who do.

Carefully stepping over the unconscious guards outside the door to the main lab (which I knew was the main lab because it had a big sign over the door that said MAIN LAB) I stuck a sensor array on the frosted glass and concentrated. Quickly a mental image of the layout on the other side of the door arranged itself in my head. This system had a slight chance of giving me a roaring headache, but I figured it was worth the risk. My Raven Senses™ were going haywire.

Okay. A bunch of geeks and nerds were huddled around computer monitors, and a couple of guys stood in front of a weird stasis field. That had to be it. And …

Oh, shit.

One other nice little perk of this sensor is that it detects psychic plasma. You know, like what her 'soul-self' thing is made of? The room was lousy with it. It was now _officially_ time to hit the snooze button. Palming the range control for the hex-energy capacitor, I let a few pink sparks leak into the keypad by the door, waited a couple of seconds for the _*click*_, and eased inside.

Several things happened simultaneously. For one, I spotted her, peeking out from under a tile in the ceiling across the room. When we're this close, it's almost impossible to miss. Thing is, she spotted me, too. I wasn't sure what she'd been up to, but it instantly became obvious when the line from one of the pressurized tanks along the wall to my left started whistling _really_ loud, and the temperature in the room took a nosedive. The technicians and scientists all must have known what that sound meant, because they made a break for the big double-doors across the room, most of them sprinting. My Worthy Opponent tried to use her telekinetics to grab the device, but I wasn't having _**any**_ of that, thanks all the same. I focused on her location and emptied the capacitor's reservoir at her.

And see, here's the thing about using hex energy in big bursts like that: fine control goes straight to shit. I wanted to blast the ceiling out from under her, maybe disorient her so that she wouldn't be able to catch herself when she fell, and maybe, if I got _really_ lucky, she'd get knocked out. But plans are dodgy things, especially when you make them up on the fly. So, while I did blow out the ceiling _under_ her, I also blew out a great big piece of the roof _above_ her, and a couple of support beams into the bargain. The room started to collapse. And I was starting to freeze. Apparently the pressure tank she decided to pick on held liquefied air or some such, and it doesn't take very long _**at all**_ for high-velocity gas at -200ºC get a grip on your attention.

I ran to the containment field, hitting the control board with another blast of hex energy on the way. That, at least, worked as advertized. The field winked out and the … _really weird-looking_ device clattered to the tabletop. I scooped it up, surprised at how light it was, and high-tailed it. I knew she'd be after me pronto, and I wanted me a big ol' piece of OUTSIDE before that happened.

Because one thing I could tell about the escaping liquefied gas was that it wasn't inert. It stung my nose, and not just from the cold. For whatever reason, Raven had chosen to bust open a cylinder of liquid oxygen. It was only a matter of time before …

Yeah. Dense, highly-reactive gas plus damaged – and therefore sparking – electronics makes a really bad combination. I wasn't quite out of the building when it went off. Hell of a boom, too. If I hadn't been scared bad enough to piss my pants, I would have laughed at her mistake. But I could do that later. Assuming I lived.

A piece of the roof caved in right in front of me, exposing a nice, big hole full of night-time sky, and a more beautiful sight I hadn't laid eyes on in _months_. I activated the rocket belt and shot straight up out of that hole at four and a half gees …

##

**The Secret**

This wasn't the first time I'd ever been knocked cold, and I guarantee it won't be the last. Comes with the territory.

It's funny how the various methods for rendering someone unconscious can result in such different effects upon finally coming around. For example, I've been kayoed by electricity twice, once by landing on a high-tension fence, and once by this lightning-wielding super-villain. Both times, when I woke up, I was instantly fully-aware and in possession of my faculties. On three other occasions I was cold-cocked via blunt trauma to the head. That takes quite a while to get over, and I was muzzy and stupid for several hours after I woke up. The light concussion probably has a lot to do with that.

But this? Having something blow up and smash me flat against something else? Yeah, that's pretty much an occupational hazard. Villains seem to prefer lairs that will explode if you look at them cross-eyed. Happens all the time. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. But I'm not. I always come to in a very disoriented state, with little memory of what went on right before the explosion, and it takes me a while to piece things together.

Something _**else**_ I'm not used to, and don't ever want to _**get**_ used to, is waking up in restraints. They even had my head in a clamp. I would have to be very careful now. _**Very**_ careful. Obviously my directive against contact with anyone in this dimension was already compromised. I needed to find out what they knew, what they suspected, and most of all, where the remote was.

Opening one eye a crack allowed me to examine the ceiling: white acoustic tile. I listened for any signs that someone was in the room with me and was shortly rewarded when a male voice cleared its throat and said, "If you're trying to pretend to still be unconscious, don't bother."

"Pretending," I answered in a pained tone, "has a lot less to do with it than does the level of light in the room. Is there something wrong with your eyes? It's like noon in Death Valley in here!"

The Voice paused and then muttered, "Note: subject has extreme sensitivity to light."

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"For the moment I'll be doing the questioning and you'll be doing the answering. Who are you working for?"

"How long have I been unconscious?"

I heard a few steps and a face moved into my field of view. He wasn't bad-looking. Maybe mid-to-late forties and just a tad weather-beaten, but he had all of his (sandy-blond) hair, and those blue eyes didn't look like they missed much. He regarded me coldly and said, "You don't seem to understand how things work around here." He held up a funny-looking stick. "If you believe I have any regard _at all_ for your physical integrity, let me assure you right now how mistaken you are." He brought the end of the stick close to my face. "This device causes intense pain and permanent scarring. I will be more than happy to demonstrate the finer points of its use, starting with your face." He pressed a stud on the handle, and a strong electric current arced between two sharp points at the end. The tang of ozone assailed my nose. This was definitely not part of the plan.

I looked him in the eye. "You make a compelling argument, sir."

"I rather thought so. Now, talk."

"I work for the NSA."

He frowned deeply at that. "What interest does the National Security Agency have in our operation? We're strictly local."

"It's not you, specifically. It's that thing you were studying."

"Ah. Now we're getting somewhere. How did the NSA know about that … device?"

"Because it was stolen from them."

One eyebrow slowly rose toward his hairline. "Interesting."

"Now will you tell me how long I was out?"

"Not if you're going to lie to me."

"But I haven't. Not yet, anyway."

"We happen to know for a fact that our organization was the first to discover that artifact. It could not have been stolen from the National Security Agency because they never had it."

"I never said what NSA stood for. You just assumed."

The frown he gave me then had probably turned quite a few interrogees into jellied lumps. He brought the end of the stick down to a point just about even with my chin. "There are many extremely sensitive points on the face. I could burn away much of it and you'd still be able to talk understandably."

"I take it you have experience in that department."

"Extensive experience."

"Has that sort of treatment ever resulted in someone's death?"

"Many times. And I must say how impressed I am that you are taking your situation with such … aplomb. It's almost as if you aren't afraid of what I'll do."

"That's because I'm not."

"So you're insane then."

"Not according to the Agency psych department." And I gave him a winning smile.

This interrogation wasn't going at all how he had planned, and it showed on his face. "Do you know something I don't know?"

"Apparently, or you wouldn't be going through this exercise."

He drew back with an incredulous look, and then had a long laugh. "Amazing. Did the NSA have your capacity for self-preservation surgically removed?"

"Hardly. But as you mentioned, I do know something you don't know."

"Wait. I get it. You don't feel pain, do you?"

"Oh, no, I don't like pain any more than the next girl. But you are laboring under something of a misconception."

"And how's that?"

"You've got my head clamped. You have my limbs immobilized by what feels like metal bands."

"Correct on both counts. We didn't want you hurrying off." He moved closer. "And I fail to see how this is a misconception."

"Well that makes one of us."

"Enough with the lively banter. Tell me everything you know about the the relationship between the NSA and that device. And if I don't like your answers, I'll burn away parts of you until I do like them."

"Oh, that won't be necessary."

"Because you're going to cooperate?"

"Nope."

He had obviously had enough after that comment. The stick started sparking and he jabbed it at my forehead, but it never made contact. I activated my personal field, bringing it into being just past my super-suit, and then expanding it very quickly. It snapped all the restraints, shot me up off the table, and knocked my interrogator back a few meters. The instant I got a decent idea of how big the room was (not very) I slapped another field on all the walls and the ceiling, and dialed it down to opaque. Mister Pointy-Stick scrambled to his feet and stared around for a couple of seconds, but I grabbed him with a field and slammed him down on the table, encasing his little nightmare tool in an impenetrable, sparkling ball and crushing it to powder. His eyes got really big.

"Now," I said, very matter-of-factly, "how long was I unconscious?"

"You know I'm not going to tell you anyth-" That stopped off short, converting to a rather loud scream when I broke his left forearm in three places.

I gave him a friendly smile. "All talk and no action doesn't get much done. You should know that, given your line of work. Would you care to try the other arm?"

"F-f-four hours. M-m-m-maybe less."

"That's more like it. Now, what happened to the device?"

"One of … one of your agents … stole it."

"_**My**_ agent? Sorry, not mine. I came here alone. Did anyone get a look at who took it?"

"Why do you … aiighh! No, nobody!" It didn't take much pressure on those broken bones to turn him into a regular Chatty Cathy.

"How about security cameras?"

"… I … I know they … have some. But … I didn't see any. They just … called me in … to question you. I'm just … a backup."

"Was anyone monitoring this room?"

"Don't … know."

I considered him for a moment, walking around to his other side. He followed my motion, whimpering quietly from the pain, and I noticed that he'd wet his pants. "Tisk-tisk-tisk. Big, strong guy like you, and you can't even hold your water."

He stared at me as if I were some sort of demon. And I guess, given his current situation, he wasn't too far wrong. The thing is, I had to weigh the inter-dimensional damage that allowing him to spread the word about me would do, with the damage that simply removing him from the equation would do. When you're in the game to save an entire dimension, with something on the order of several septillion sentient entities parked around in the various galactic groups, you've got to be willing to take some collateral damage. I didn't like it, but I realized it was necessary.

Sighing in resignation, I asked, "Are we still in the same complex where you were studying the device?"

"Ye-yeah."

"Good. Where is Central Security? Is it in this building?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. You have been very helpful." Paying him that much respect was the least I could do, considering. I encased him in a field and then smashed it down to a sphere about half-a-millimeter across. The process took less than a thousandth of a second; given the speed at which I knew pain-carrying neurons fired, he quite literally didn't feel a thing. I dropped the tiny sphere of previously-organic tissue in a corner, turned invisible, dispersed my cloaking field, and eased out the door. I needed to find out where they'd taken my tracking device …


	3. Chapter 3

**Triad**

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_[Author's Notes: I'm going to try something I've seen done successfully elsewhere, which is answer the reviews to the previous chapter._

**Don'tArgueWithMissHepworth** **-  
I'm enjoying the story! Skated through Chapter Two a little what with the HOLY JEEPERS, TORNADOS NEARLY KILLED MY FAVOURITE, RECENTLY NEGLECTED FANFIC WRITER.  
I really need to get into Teen Titans so I can understand two thirds of the story, but... the writing is fantastic. And the sharp clever Violet stuff is superb, if mildly alarming when the killing-people bit starts. "All over it like ugly on a warthog" is genius.  
**_Thanks, Dora! The tornadoes have indeed been incredibly bad in the States this season. In April, for example, we would normally have 50-60 tornadoes. Instead we had 875 reports with 625 confirmed. Not long after my hometown got blasted, a bigger one took out Joplin, Missouri. They are right there in Tornado Alley (roughly the southern part of the Great American Desert, then east and north into the Midwest) and although I've heard that one gets used to that sort of thing, it isn't something I'd WANT to get used to. And the 450kph winds that EF5-class twister brought to town were impossible to resist. Period. Over 140 dead at last count._

_But I try not to dwell on that. Natural disasters are … well … natural. People are rebuilding as they may. _

_I'm very pleased that you are enjoying the story; as concerns background and understanding and familiarity, most of the Teen Titans cartoons are available on Youtube. You could do worse than pull up the first season and watch them. That would give you a good idea of what they sound like, their basic personalities, etc. You would need to see the last two seasons to understand Terra and her motivations. Poor thing. But you need a good grounding in Terra psychology if you're going to read any of my other TT stuff. She shows up not infrequently. As for Violet and her alarmingly fatal tendencies, more on that in later chapters._

**Death Sword -  
****Bad-ass violet coming to play. I like how you've split this story into three different views allows for some intriguing timing, I wonder what they would all be like if they were listening to the same monologue at the same time? Hmm. Great Job.  
**_Thanks! I think trying to listen to all that going on at once would be very confusing. It confused me, before I got things sorted._

**100 Silver Wings** **-  
Jinx's Raven Senses. Does anything more need be said? That little snip was just pure gold.  
I really like the spin on Violet you've done here. In the movie all we really got to see was her going from shy and insecure to strong, with little personality in there. And now you've made her sarcastic, witty, and with no reserves on killing. Very interesting and it's making for a very likeable character.  
Well, the only further thing I can say really is that this is an awesome story, and we're only at chapter two. There have been apocalypse plots, exploding buildings, and sneaky ninjas so far. I cannot wait to see what further chapters will bring.  
**_Heeheehee! Thank you! As mentioned above, there will be a further fleshing-out of Violet's character down the road. That also goes for Jinx and Raven. Still, I wouldn't say that Violet has NO reservations about killing. She just has a finely-tuned appreciation for the gravity of her mission. I want to apologize for the typo in Violet's section. For some reason, when I send the story back and forth between computers, spaces after periods get randomly eliminated, and when that gets turned into a FFnet document, the system thinks that "gone(period)That" is a __web address and deletes it. Pbbbbb.]_

_And I thank all the rest of you who have sent condolences or good thoughts, or left comments. Thanks bunches!_

_Disclaimer: Still don't own the Titans. Ditto the Incredibles. And I may never recover from that revelation._

**. . .**

**. . .**

**. . .**

_**Chapter Three**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

**The Dark**

There is a very peculiar side-effect to the way that Jinx handles her hex-blasts these days, and I strongly suspect it has a lot to do with the hardware her outfit supplies her with. It used to be that if you could avoid the direct line-of-fire, it was a clean miss. No more. There is a sort of wave front that rides along just outside the central channel, and if it washes over you, it has this really … _disorienting_ effect. If it hadn't been for that, and the momentary forced lapse in concentration it caused, I might have been able to phase through the rubble, follow that pink-haired witch, and snitch the Big Bad Doodad. I really wish it had all panned out differently.

But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as the saying goes. I had all I could do to keep from getting squashed like a bug when she dropped that chunk of roof on me, and I really felt like crying, 'Foul!' (I'm tougher than average, but it probably massed 200 kilos, and my bones _**will**_ break if given enough incentive). As it was, things got pretty tight there for several seconds while I was getting my brain sorted out. No sooner did my vision clear up than I surrounded myself with a shield of soul-self, pushing the thick layer of debris off me. Darn good thing I _**had**_ that shield up, too, considering that a couple of seconds later there was this incredible explosion. My (relatively fragile, when compared with, say, hardwood) body would have impeded the progress of about twenty kilos of shrapnel. Even at that, it blew me up and out of the building, wrecking my concentration again, and I came altogether _too close_ to getting splattered across the center of the compound. I managed to catch myself before impact, but the effort nearly made me black out. So naturally …

_[ [ Thirteen! I heard an explosion … What happened? ] ]_

Let's just say I wasn't up to a conversation at that point.

_[ [ Thirteen! Come in! ] ]_

I ignored his increasingly strident demands for response while I set my house in order. It took a few moments before I was recovered sufficiently to use my powers safely. Jinx, it seemed, had taken the opportunity to put some distance between us. I couldn't feel her at all, not with my 'local' web. That probably meant she had some kind of mechanical help, maybe a stealth-cycle or a jet-pack. I narrowed my eyes.

{ { Zulu, Jinx blew up the lab where they were studying the device } }

_[ [ There you are! Thank God! I was starting to think … ] ]_

{ { I know what you were thinking … the same thing you always think, that I can't take care of myself … it is beginning to get insulting } }

_[ [ Now don't be that way ] ]_

{ { Then stop treating me as if I were some sort of delicate _objet d'art_ … I don't have a "Made by Tiffany's" stamp on my ass } }

_[ [ Hmph … a bit testy, are we? ] ]_

I broke the connection. With Jinx out of the immediate neighborhood, I was going to have to do some serious psychic surveillance, and that meant I needed altitude. It isn't so bad if the nearest minds are several hundred meters out, but trying to find that blythe spirit's signature while dealing with a group of minds that is significantly closer is more taxing than I like to contemplate. I rose steadily, straight up, for about a minute. When the lights below were difficult to distinguish as separate points, I opened my mind and listened.

There are a lot of disadvantages to having a major demon for a father, not the least of which being the fact that his left-overs keep trying to interfere in my life. It got much easier after his defeat, after his power was stripped from him and his path to this dimension destroyed and his essence trapped in the deepest level of Hell, but "easier" is most definitely a relative term. Putting out a thousand hectare wildfire is "easier" than stopping a tsunami, in that dealing with the wildfire is possible. Barely. But just because Trigon isn't there to egg it on doesn't mean my demonic side has suddenly sprouted fairy wings and started making rainbow-colored cupcakes for the neighborhood bake sale. It's a daily struggle, sometimes an hourly struggle, to maintain my control over my faculties. That I am almost always successful at it does _**not**_ mean the demon is weak; I've just learned all her tricks. I know how best to contain her, how most easily to fend off her efforts to take over my body. I know how long her leash is, to the micron, and I know how to let her out a little now and then, just to stretch her legs so to speak, so that she doesn't swell with bottled resentment and frustration like a corpse left in the sun.

You'll pardon the simile, I hope.

I needed her help with this, so I unlocked her prison and led her out. Another set of eyes appeared on my forehead, all four of them glowing red. I focused her attention on the image of Jinx, subtly slipping in the question of where she might be, and what may be done with her when we catch her. My tongue, suddenly a bit too long for my mouth, lolled out in gleeful anticipation as the demon's imagination flared to life.

**SO NICE! **It all but drooled over the prospect of having her to play with. **SO NICE! SO SOFT! SO DAINTY!**

_Yes,_ I agreed, _she is soft and quite the little morsel. Can you feel her?_

There was a moment of hesitation, then slowly I spun in the air until I was facing north. **THERE!**

I wrapped the spider-silk strands of my mind around the spoor she had picked up. Yes. There was no mistaking that mind, though she was quite distant.

I leaned forward and shot off in that direction, quickly placing my demon back into her box. Her snarl did not give me any pleasant vibrations …

##

**The Bright**

You know Murphy, of 'Murphy's Law' fame? The jerk who pulls so much overtime on my account? Well, apparently he has an evil twin who decided that my life was getting just a little too orderly.

To start with, my rocket pack finked out on me early. Eh, maybe that's being too kind. Actually, it exploded, and I only avoided getting barbecued because my spy suit is heat resistant and lined with hyperpolymer. Luckily (?) I had a parachute with me. It's small, but then so am I. We came down in some woods, and _**of course**_ my 'chute got hung up in a big poplar, leaving some eight or ten meters between my toes and terra firma. Since I had nothing better to do just then, I took stock of the situation, trying to find some kind of 'out'. By my best guess, it was still about three or four klicks to the coast, where I'd stashed my boat. And I knew I wouldn't have enough time to hike it before the Corvid Commando showed up and rained on my parade. Because, trust me, she would.

First order of business was to get the hell out of that tree. I was strung up out toward the end of what looked like a really long branch. Gauging the distance from my perch to the trunk, and then comparing it with the distance to the ground, I nodded to myself. This might be a bit tricky, but I'd been in worse spots. I fished around and pulled out a small concussion grenade (because I have yet to figure out how to put a time-delay on my hexes) and hefted it a couple of times, squinting narrowly at the spot where the branch met the trunk. I could just make out through the leaves and the gloom that there was a forky sort of depression in the wood just above the joint. This would be close.

I pulled the pin, let the trip release go, and counted to four before letting fly, accompanying my pitch with a little burst of pink energy. The grenade touched the trunk at the instant it exploded, and industrial-strength splinters filled the air, making me glad once again for the high level of structural integrity in my suit. I probably looked like a porcupine, from one side, anyway. My 'cool-air swing', as Br'er Rabbit would have called it, vibrated mightily and then took a stomach-flipping lurch downward. I arced in toward the tree, my feet meeting earth about a meter from the bole, and skipped around to its other side, getting out of the way of the falling branch with a good two seconds to spare. My grin threatened to split my head in two.

Ten seconds later I was free of the remains of the 'chute and getting my bearings again. I didn't really have many options: hang around here and wait for Raven to find me, or try to scare up some other means of transportation. I thought I'd seen a road off to the east just a little way. Maybe, even if there wasn't much traffic, I could find a house with a ride I could boost.

But then a third option made itself known: a team of flying assassins who were less than enthused about my having taken what they considered to be their property.

Goddess, but I hate automatic weapons …

##

**The Secret**

The explosion had taken out about a third of the building, from the standpoint of being any use to anyone, and they hadn't yet done anything to try to fix it. Anyway, I didn't mind giving it a wide berth since the control center would be on the other side. I had to assume that's where the tracking device would be … along with all my other equipment. They'd picked me totally clean, down to the micro-laser listening unit I kept in a hidden hair-pin.

It's amazing how much you can discover when others don't realize you're there. I only had to eavesdrop on two groups to learn what I needed to know.

Sidling up to the door (which was jammed open due to the wall being slightly squished) I got a good look inside and then grinned to myself. Two? They only had two men on duty? The explosion must have really drained their forces. Either that, or they just weren't very used to needing security this deep inside. I formed a pair of small force-field balls and rammed them into the guys' heads. The guards dropped like wet sacks.

One of the reasons that the NSA scientists were so worried about the possibility of someone in this dimension using Syndrome's remote to create Zero-Point Energy was that the two were so nearly parallel. Things that happen in one reality can affect what happens in the other, and having this one collapse wouldn't do ours any good _**at all**_. However, one distinct perk of the similarities between them was that the language they spoke here was so close to what I speak that we even share a few idioms. I hadn't yet heard anyone say anything that I flatly couldn't understand. That carried over to their control systems, too. I didn't have to study the board very long to see how to access the surveillance records, and when I did, I got something of a shock. The interrogator who had me strapped to that table had lied to me about how much time had passed. I'd only been out maybe twenty minutes, tops.

That meant that whoever had broken in and taken the remote couldn't have gone very far. Quickly, I scanned back through the various surveillance units until I came to the point where the explosion occurred. Then I tracked around until I found the hallway where I'd been knocked out.

I've got to give these guys credit: their emergency response team was second-to-none. They had four men on-site and clearing rubble in less than forty-five seconds, and had my battered self dug out in under two minutes. From there it wasn't hard to follow their progress to a nearby …

My eyebrows rose a bit. They'd taken me in here first, then to a conference room off to the side. I glanced around, spotted the door in the video, and zipped over there, going invisible.

The door wasn't locked, which made me _**tsk**_ again. Single-mindedness on security does not a successful evil lair make. My effects were neatly lined up on a slender table against one wall. There were four more such tables, each with its own (rather bright) overhead light, and each with a tall surround of glass. Narrowing my eyes, I wondered if this was where the heightened security came in. Gliding over to the table, I didn't touch anything. There were no apparent sensors anywhere, but …

Ah-ha!

The glass cover was a single, molded piece which simply sat on the table, some four centimeters in from the edge all around. To access my stuff, all I had to do was lift it. But it angled in, and it had no handles, and it looked pretty heavy. That's when I noticed that the bottom edge of the glass had a thin, metal lip. I'd bet good money that glass cover was sitting over a few proximity switches.

I knelt and looked under the table. Sure enough, a thin bundle of wires came out of the wall and split into twelve, snaking around and disappearing into the heavy wood in several places. I squatted back on my heels and thought it over. Should I just smash and grab, or try something with a little more finesse? I didn't have a lot of time, but then they would know soon enough that I'd escaped from Mr. Nightmare. Decisions, decisions.

Well, first things first. I went back out to the control room, called up all the surveillance records, and deleted them. Then I powered down all the cameras, and opened all the automatic locks in the facility. That took about four minutes. I was in the process of trying to disable as many of the alarms as I could find, when one of the guards' communicators buzzed.

"_Theta group, you haven't reported in. What's your status?"_

That sort of made up my mind for me. I ran back to the conference room, sliced the glass in half sideways with a line-field, and used a flat field to lift the severed top and set it on the floor. If the alarms attached to the table were still active, they must have been silent, because I never heard a peep. I scooped up my effects and high-tailed it. Only two doors stood between me and the welcome darkness outside, then a well-placed force field launched me about eighty meters or so into the night sky, and another one acted as a para-sail to get me well clear of the outer perimeter fence.

Once outside the complex, I powered up my locator and saw that I was right: the remote was only a few klicks away, toward the coast. I didn't know who had beaten me to it, but I'd shortly find out. I began a long series of force-field-powered hops, zipping along at probably fifty kph.

Sounds of the gunfight assailed my ears before I saw it, and I quickly realized that there was a small war going on straight ahead. I dropped down into the trees maybe a hundred and fifty meters from the action and checked my unit again. Yep. At least two groups were fighting over it. Huffing a disgusted sigh, I had to wonder how so many people had decided so quickly that it was valuable.

No matter. It had to be destroyed, and it was a good bet neither of those involved wanted the job. I jogged in the direction of the fight, keeping my personal shield up and damped to black everywhere except over my eyes. But when maybe fifty meters out, when I was just able to make out the muzzle flashes through the darkness, three things happened all-but-simultaneously: there was a high, feminine shriek, a missed shot came rocketing through the trees and knocked my locating device out of my hand, and a massive flash of pink lit up the sky ...


End file.
